This spot being once selected, the tents were soon pitched; and in a short time, on the summit of the sand-hill, there rose the little encampment of the English expedition, consisting of four tents forming a sort of semi-circle, opening towards the south, the point to which all our arduous efforts were directed, Mr. Richardson’s tent towards the west, Overweg’s and mine adjoining it towards the east, and each flanked by a smaller tent for the servants. Doubtless this sand-hill will ever be memorable in the annals of the Asbenáwa as the “English Hill,” or the “Hill of the Christians.” But before I proceed to relate the incidents of our daily life while we stayed here, it will be well to introduce the reader to the country and the people with whom we have come in contact. CHAPTER XIV. ETHNOGRAPHICAL RELATIONS OF AÍR. The name Aír, exactly as it is written and pronounced by the natives at the present day, first occurs in the description of Leo, which was written in 1526. The country Káher, mentioned by the traveller Ebn Batúta on his home journey from Tekádda by way of the wells of Asïu, is evidently somewhere hereabouts, but seems rather to denote the region a few days’ journey west from Tin-téllust, and to be identical with the “Ghir” of Leo, though this extended more to the south-west. The name being written by the Arabs with an _h_ (Ahír), most historical geographers have erroneously concluded that this is the true indigenous form of the name. Aïr, however, does not appear to be the original name of the country, but seems to have been introduced by the Berber conquerors, the former name being Asben or Absen, as it is still called by the black and the mixed population. Asben was formerly the country of the Góberáwa, the most considerable and noble portion of the Háusa nation, which does not seem to belong to the pure Negro races, but to have originally had some relationship with North Africa; and from this point of view the statement of Sultan Bello cannot be regarded as absurd, when in the introduction to his historical work on the conquests of the Fulbe, “Infák él misúri fi fat hah el Tekrúri,” he calls the people of Góber Copts, though only one family is generally considered by the learned men of the country as of foreign origin. The capital of this kingdom of Asben, at least since the sixteenth century, was Tin-shamán, at present a village a little to the west of the road from Aúderas to Ágades, and about twenty miles from the latter place. The name is evidently a Berber one; and the Berber influence is still more evident from the fact that a portion, at least, of the population of the town were Masúfa, a well-known Berber tribe who in former times were the chief guides on the road from Sejilmésa to Waláta. Be this as it may, several learned men, inhabitants of this place, are mentioned by the native historians of Negroland, which shows that there existed in it some degree of comparative civilization. In